


Winter Wonder

by phoenixdna



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 09:11:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19720636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixdna/pseuds/phoenixdna
Summary: You and the Avengers are on a winter retreat. You throw a snowball and things get out of hand. Fluff for Bucky/telekinetic!reader of any gender.





	Winter Wonder

**Author's Note:**

> For tumblr user @bucky-at-bedtime's challenge - I can't remember which one!

The snow fell gently on the forest, muffling everything. You looked up at the sky. It was mostly obscured by the trees, but in the spaces where it shone through, it was a pale grey-white, like marble.

Ahead of you on the trail were your traveling companions – Steve, Natasha, and Wanda. The snow suited them, you thought, as they forged ahead along the trail. Steve’s navy coat standing out in the woods, snowflakes glittering in Wanda’s and Natasha’s red hair.

“Getting tired?” came a voice from behind you. You turned and rolled your eyes. Bucky.

“No,” you said, a little defensively. Bucky looked down at the snow, smiling.

“Hey, you’re behind me!” you pointed out.

“Someone has to make sure you don’t get lost,” Bucky said. You were ninety percent sure he didn’t mean it.

Ahead of you, you could see where the trail ended. Off in the distance, the lodge came into view. A group of you – Steve, Bucky, Wanda, Natasha, Tony, and Vision – were staying at one of Tony’s properties for the week. It was a remote lodge at the edge of a lake. Quiet. Team building was the official reason cited for the vacation, but you had a sneaking suspicion that your higher-ups had done it to manage stress. Yeah, right. Like a week away from the world would ever manage stress in this line of work.

If anything, the trip was causing stress for you. You were new to the team, and desperately wanted to fit in. Everyone knew each other so well. Most of them seemed pretty indifferent to you, but they were warming up. Steve was especially friendly. Bucky was always teasing. You weren’t sure why. Maybe it was his way of being friendly. Maybe more than friendly. You could only hope.

As you emerged from the woods, you scanned the open field. The others went on ahead. You heard a strange sound coming from the woods, maybe a bird, and you turned to find it.

You were searching for the source of the sound when a snowball hit you square in the back of the head.

You whipped around, fury on your face, to see Steve and Wanda also looking for the sound. Natasha was looking at Bucky, and Bucky was grinning an absolutely ridiculous grin. Then he saw your face. You could see the exact moment he went from what a hilarious prank to oh, crap, I’ve just whipped a snowball at someone who can move things with their mind. His face snapped into something akin to fear.

You gathered up snow in your hand and made a snowball, lobbing it at him. The others were watching you, now. The snowball sailed over Bucky’s head and he watched it go, laughing all the while. He turned back around, about to say something. The words never made it out of his mouth, though.

Because the instant he turned around, the second snowball nailed him in the face.

It was your turn to smile, at Bucky’s expression and at the others around you, in absolute hysterics. You couldn’t savour the moment for long, though, because another snowball flew at you. You managed to intercept it about a foot from your face.

You didn’t have time to figure out where it had come from, because a split second later, the snowballs were flying. You were able to deflect some, but they were coming in from every direction. You knew, in the back of your mind, that you could just put up a shield and be done with it. But you were enjoying the challenge of dodging the snowballs, and you were having a good time. You stayed close to the treeline, ducking behind the trees and lobbing snowballs at anyone within sight.

As you sensed the fight was winding down, you grabbed a big chunk of snow, with the intention of dropping it on someone’s head. You sprinted out of the treeline and across the open field, heading for Steve. He didn’t see you, and you were almost there, and-

You were being picked up. You dropped the snow chunk in surprise, writhing around in the person’s grip, trying to figure out who it was. They were holding you tight, but across the field, you counted Steve, Natasha, and Wanda.

“Bucky!” you shouted, laughing, “Put me down!”

“Okay,” he said, and with a poof, dropped you into some fluffy snow in the ditch near the treeline. You looked up at him, feigning irritation, but he just smirked and started walking away. You tried to get up and follow him.

“Bucky, get back here,” you called after him, “My boot’s stuck in the snow.”

He nodded in concern and started toward you. You watched his approach, carefully timing it. When he was about three feet away, you grinned an evil grin. You looked up, and Bucky did, too.

You shook the snow-coated pine branches above you with your mind, and their piles of snow dropped, all at once, directly onto Bucky. When the snow cleared, you saw him, covered in snow and absolutely giddy.

“I walked right into that one, didn’t I?” he said.

“Yeah,” you replied. He offered you a hand and pulled you out of the snow.

“We even?” you asked.

“Yeah, [Y/N], we’re even,” he said. He put his arm around your shoulders as you walked back to the lodge, and you felt so warm inside, the snow all over you might melt. The others were assembled around the back deck, snow-covered and chatting. Tony emerged from the back door.

“Vision sent me to tell you that dinner’s ready,” Tony said.

“Vision can’t cook to save his life,” Wanda said.

“Well, I don’t know,” Tony started, “He just told me to-” A snowball hit Tony in the chest.

“Hey!” he said, “Who did that?”

To their credit, every one of your snowball-wielding colleagues pointed at someone else.

“Whatever,” Tony said, “If you’re not hungry, you can starve. See if I care.” He huffed. “The things I have to put up with.” He turned around and stalked inside. Bucky smiled at you.

“Good one,” he said.

“That wasn’t me!” you replied.

“It was me,” Wanda piped up. Everyone broke out laughing and went inside to get changed for dinner.

***

It became something of a problem.

Bucky had said you were even, and you thought you were. That is, until he hit you with a snowball in the middle of the hallway one day. This started a vicious prank war. You dropped a snowball in his coffee in the morning. He dumped one on your head while sitting in the hot tub.

Things came to a head during the only meeting the team hadn’t been able to weasel its way out of during the week. You were all seated around a conference table in one of the rooms in the lodge, video conferencing with HQ. It was a lot of politics, and the majority of your teammates were bored out of their wits. Tony was good with business, so he was doing most of the talking. Vision contributed here and there, as did Natasha and Steve. But you stayed very, very far out of it.

Bucky kicked you under the table. You rolled your eyes. He kicked you again. You rounded on him and gave him an exasperated expression, and he responded like he was innocent. Innocence never sat well on his face, though. He turned back around.

You searched the room for some way to get back at him. Your eyes rounded on a pitcher of water in the middle of the table, with ice cubes floating in it.

You floated an ice cube out of the pitcher. It slid through the air. Natasha saw you, but you put your finger to your lips, shushing her. The conversation lulled and you saw an opportunity. Very carefully, you popped the ice cube down the back of Bucky’s shirt.

Bucky shrieked, standing bolt upright. Everyone in the conference room turned to look. Bucky froze, very aware of the attention on him.

“Do you have something to say, Barnes?” the man on the videoconference asked.

“N…no,” Bucky said, sitting back down. He glared daggers at you, shivering as the ice cube made its way down his back.

After the meeting, Tony dragged the two of you out of the conference room by the ear.

“Whatever schoolboy-crush, tugging-on-pigtails nonsense you two idiots are up to, it has to stop,” Tony snapped. You opened your mouth. “Now!” Tony said, “Just figure it out!”

***

You couldn’t believe you’d agreed to this.

You stood in front of your mirror. You were wearing a pair of long underwear; underneath it was your bathing suit. After Tony gave you the ultimatum, Bucky came up with a plan. One last competition to rule them all, he said. When he proposed it, you agreed instantly, never one to back down from a challenge.

You pulled on your coat and boots and made your way out to the lake. Tony, Nat, Steve, Bucky, and Wanda were waiting by the lake. Tony had obliged right away when Bucky told him, using his suit to burn a five-foot-wide hole in the frozen lake. Whoever managed to stay in the lake longest would win.

“You ready?” Bucky asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” you said, stripping your coat, boots, and socks off. You were already shivering in the air, never mind what the water would do to you. But you never backed down from a fight. You wanted the team to like you. You wanted Bucky to like you. Tony started counting down. When he hit zero, you hopped right in the water.

You almost screamed, but the sheer cold of the water punched the air out of your chest. You’d never experienced anything this cold. You swore you could almost feel ice cubes in the bottom of the water, but there weren’t any, just the sandy bottom of the lake.

You wrenched your eyes open. Bucky’s expression had gone flat. Your body was prickling. You couldn’t feel your fingers and toes. You shivered violently, your teeth clattering together.

The lack of feeling crept up your arms. You told yourself you’d experienced worse pain than this, and you had. This was different, though; somehow more present, more all-over-all-at-once.

You had no idea how much time had passed. Your thoughts went foggy.

“Hey,” you heard someone say. It sounded like they were very far away. You tried to turn your head but your body wasn’t doing what you told it to. All your sensations were coming from a good distance outside of you; thoughts and emotions were coming from deep within, like they were echoing from the bottom of a well.

“[Y/N] isn’t shivering anymore,” someone said. Others agreed. There was a brief bicker about getting you out of the water, but you couldn’t follow it.

The next thing you knew, you were being lifted out of the water. It was Wanda doing the lifting; you flashed back to a first aid course where you’d been told not to jar someone with hypothermia. The yard drifted by you. You fought to keep your eyes open.

You were in a bathroom. Bucky was in front of you. Wanda set you down on the floor and left.

“Hey,” Bucky said, “Gotta get you out of those wet clothes.” You nodded. You felt heat coming from the floor. You pulled futilely at your wet shirt, your frozen fingers lacking the dexterity to do anything. Bucky frowned and pulled it off. Next were your pants, a bit of a manoeuvre, given you still weren’t sure if you could stand. Bucky hummed reassurance as he removed the rest of your swimsuit. Bucky ducked out to his room and returned with a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. They were Bucky’s, and you knew they wouldn’t fit. But you started putting them on anyway.

You were starting to come back into your head; at least, enough to feel embarrassed.

“This isn’t…” you started, wracked once more by violent shivers, “This isn’t how I pictured… this going.”

For the first time, Bucky chuckled. “You mean the cold water? Or me taking off your clothes for the first time?” You hadn’t thought it possible, but warmth flooded your cheeks. It felt like they were burning.

“You’re assuming…” you started.

“Yeah, well, Tony was right. At least for me,” Bucky said, “Schoolboy crush… was he right for you, too?” You nodded, a blush and a smile.

“Come here, sweetheart,” he said. He helped you to your feet and you walked to his bed. He plopped you in and tucked you under the blankets. To your surprise, he climbed in next to you.

“Why… what?” you stuttered out.

“Treating you for hypothermia,” he said. You made a face.

“Okay, so sharing a bed isn’t strictly part of the treatment. But it can’t hurt,” he said, “As long as you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all. How come you’re not… not dying?” you asked. Bucky leaned in closer to you and put a hand on your hair, stroking it slowly.

“Cheap trick,” he said, “The cold doesn’t bother me anymore. Not since cryo. I mean, I’ll still get sick, but it takes me a lot longer.”

“You tricked me! You son of a… I could have died!”

“Hey,” he said, “I didn’t properly account for you being a stubborn idiot!”

You smiled. “There’s your mistake right there. You should always account for me being an idiot.”

“Noted,” he said.

“Can I stay here?” you asked cautiously.

“You can stay here as long as you want,” he said, “At least, until dinner. Until Vision tries to poison us again.” He paused for a moment. “Why did you stay in the water so long?”

“I wanted to impress you,” you said sheepishly, “I wanted you to like me.”

He looked incredulous.

“Remember,” you said, “Always account for-”

“I mean, I’ve liked you since the day you joined,” he said.

“Really?!” you asked, shocked, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Same reason as you,” he said, kissing you on the forehead, “Always account for me being a stubborn idiot.”

You felt exhausted and glowing. You cuddled closer to Bucky’s chest, sleepy and safe. And warm. Finally warm.


End file.
